The United States Supreme Court takes its name seriously, and it
expects lower courts to follow its instructions. But the Oregon Supreme
Court has twice refused to reduce a $79.5 million punitive damages
award in the face of increasingly blunt directions from the nation's
highest court.

When the United States Supreme Court agreed to
hear the Oregon case for a third time in June, many legal experts
assumed it did so to teach the lower court a lesson about which court
has the last word.

''The Oregon Supreme Court really has
continued to be defiant in this case,'' Benjamin C. Zipursky, a Fordham
law professor, said.